This is DeLillo's take on Science Fiction, and it is brilliant in places. I particularly enjoyed his version of the MIT Language Riots, which predates David Foster Wallace's (in Infinite Jest) by over 20 years. Ratner's Star is surreal in a number of places, and the ending is likely to leave many readers frustrated. The passage where a writer introspects (about why she writes) is great. I'm a little bit tired of DeLillo's style (perhaps of the whole postmodern thing), but I'll probably read the rest of his novels over the next year or so, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the critics say about the novel he's about to publish ( Underworld, I think).